


Not A Villain

by Tallihensia



Series: Not A Villain [2]
Category: Smallville
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Drama, Future Fic, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-10
Updated: 2010-10-10
Packaged: 2017-10-12 13:37:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/125441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tallihensia/pseuds/Tallihensia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/113653">A Complicated Life</a>. Lex doesn't show up for dinner (big surprise), and Conner and Clark track him down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not A Villain

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** Only mine in my dreams. ;-) This story was written for free entertainment purposes only and may not be reproduced for profit or altered without permission.
> 
>  **Warnings:** none
> 
>  **Spoilers:** Some 1-2 season episodes, plus a few 4-5.
> 
>  **Notes:** Sequel to "A Complicated Life" by popular demand. ^^ I hope it meets expectations! ^^;;; I'm a bit nervous about that as this one's a bit more angsty than the first, and about three times the size {sweatdrops}.  
>  Note – my Kon has more of Clark's powers than the comic Conner (instead of using the telekinesis as a substitute). Also, I'm going further into Smallville timelines than I normally do, pulling out things from up through season 6ish, to get the JL folks. It's a bit of a grab-bag, though, so some parts I choose not to use (I don't buy Lex as pure evil incarnate – or Lionel as reformed good ~..~, and no Lana/Lex/Clark storylines o.o). Only seasons 1-2 are undisputed canon. Mostly.

## Not a Villain

Conner's screams woke Clark. In seconds, he was by Conner's bed, reaching for the thrashing body. When Conner woke up, Clark was holding him tightly, saying over and over again, "It's okay. You're alright. I've got you. It's okay."

After several minutes of Conner holding Clark back just as tightly, his breath coming in low sobs, he loosened his grip. Clark held him for a moment more, then reluctantly let go. He stayed sitting on the bed, though, his hand protectively on Conner's arm.

"Want to talk about it?" Clark asked. Sometimes Conner wanted to, and sometimes he didn't. The number and variety of his son's nightmares was truly frightening and reminded Clark every night that the price of being Superman wasn't just on himself. That somebody could do this to a child... and worse yet, that the scientists hadn't even **thought** of Conner as a child; they'd seen him as only an experiment.

Conner looked away. "I don't suppose it's ever happened to **you** ," he said bitterly, his voice still shaky and his reaction to lash out in his pain.

Clark managed a slight twist of the mouth, though it probably didn't really look like a smile. "Which part?"

With a shudder, Conner reached out to Clark again, asking for another hug which Clark gave him. Speaking into Clark's shirt, Conner said, "When I was attacking you. Not being in control. Watching as I attacked you..."

"Ah." Clark remembered the first time he'd seen Conner – a younger version of himself, in blue and red, flying at him with clear blue eyes that saw nothing even as Conner attacked him with a viciousness that should have had pure hate inside. It was the eyes that had caused Superman not to fight back as hard as he could have until the Justice League arrived, and then when they did, Clark had fought instead to protect the one attacking him.

Those eyes haunted him still.

When he wasn't in Superman mode, Clark's own eyes were green. When he used his powers, the energies he drew through his body negated the color of his irises until they were blue - a horizon blue if he was simply holding his powers ready but not using them, fading out to a pale ice blue if he was channeling as much as he could. When Chloe had pointed out that fact to Clark, he'd gotten in the habit of whenever he put on the Superman costume, he would always be using some part of his power; his hearing, his vision, keeping his strength at the ready. It made his disguise more effective, an obvious physical difference between his Clark Kent and his Superman identities.

Conner's eyes, however, were blue as both Superboy or Conner Kent. They didn't change at all when Conner used his powers. Clark had wondered about it until they'd found out that Conner was genetically half-Lex Luthor. Then everything made sense, including his own initial reaction.

He remembered those clear blue eyes, watching him with cool disinterest where there should have been hate or pain. A mask over something hidden inside. Lex looked at Clark like that. And, so, while attacking him, did Conner.

Since breaking free of the mind control, Conner hadn't once ever looked at Clark like that again, his blue eyes showing every bit of what he felt, happy or sad.

"It's bad enough," Clark said, going back to Conner's implied question and pulling on his own memories to answer it, "to wake up the next day to your friends telling you about all the appalling things you did... and you don't remember any of it. That level of mind-control is frightening for everything you don't remember. Just a blank. And newspapers printing pictures of things you'd never do, and you **knowing** you didn't do it, but you must have because there was the proof in front of you." A few times early on in his career, Clark had used his Kryptonian powers to wipe somebody's memory, thinking he was doing them a favor. He never did it again after the first time it had happened to him.

"Worse is when you're trapped inside your own mind, watching everything from within and not able to do a thing about it. Screaming, raging, fighting... trying to take control of **your** body, the body that had always been your own but now was somebody else, but it's not somebody else, it's you and you're trapped. Following directions that you don't want to do and **knowing** you don't want to, but utterly powerless to stop yourself from it." Clark had long wavered between which of those two was worse. The horror of having a blank in your memory was bad... but the nightmares that came out of being aware finally tipped the scale.

"The absolute worst, however, is **enjoying** what you're doing. Doing exactly what you were told to do and thinking the entire time that it was what **you** wanted to do. And then waking up after and having every one of those memories inside your mind and knowing you were possessed and horrified at what you did, but still, the feelings from them... you'd wanted to do it at the time." Clark gulped. The uncertainty left from one of those mind-controls was the hardest to cope with after.

Conner had pulled back and was staring at him, partly in horror and partly relief. "You know!" he blurted. "But, but... you're **Superman**!"

Clark's mouth twitched up, a slightly better smile this time with some of the feeling, though it was a slightly bitter smile. "And you're Superboy." He sighed. "We're aliens, Kon, not gods, for all the 'super' in our names. The truth is, the more power you have, the more others want it. And if they can't have it directly... they'll try and take it through proxy. All of us in the Justice League have been mind-controlled more times than we want to admit. There's a psychologist we use who specializes in helping us cope." Formerly a war-vet psychologist, the meta-human had adapted well to the new calling as well as her own powers. "If you want to see her..."

This time, the denial was less emphatic than it had been in previous offerings. Clark thought that someday soon, Conner would actually accept.

"How do villains capture you and other heroes in mind-control? What do they use for it? I mean, we were bred for it, conditioning sessions for the clones part of our daily routine…" Conner shuddered again.

Clark settled into his seat on the bed. Despite the horror of the last question, Conner would be alright now; he was in information-acquisition mode, and that was pretty much a normal state of being for the teenager. "As many ways as there are people. You and I will mostly be immune to the pharmaceuticals of the world. Our alien physiology protects from plant pollens and drugs. We're slightly more susceptible, however, to witchcraft. Spells and hexes are nearly impossible to guard against and a good witch or warlock can trap us completely."

"I'm half-human," Conner pointed out.

Right. It kept slipping his mind. Since they had found out, Clark had never really forgotten, yet his conscious thoughts kept shying away from it. In just the few months since Kon had been with him, Clark had gotten used to thinking of Kon as completely like him... somebody who would understand. Clark had never had anybody just like him before. There was his cousin Kara, but she was female, which put her in a whole different category. Females were more alien than he was.

Clark shrugged, going back to Conner's point. "Everybody's experience is unique, doesn't really matter alien or human or hobbit."

"Halfling," Conner muttered, a grin lurking under his voice.

Clark responded with a quick grin of his own. "I don't think I would have been able to throw off as much conditioning as you did, right in the middle of the battle. That really impressed all of us."

"You were protecting me," Conner said softly. "I was attacking you, and you were protecting me. They had never planned for that. It opened a crack."

Clark reached out and touched Conner's hand. Conner put his other hand over Clark's and they sat silently for a moment.

Finally, Clark continued with his list. "We're immune to the mental powers of kryptonite mutants – those people who got their powers from the green kryptonite. Or at least I am, and you've probably got more resistance than normal people."

Conner scrunched on the bed and folded his legs up to sit cross-legged for a better conversation. "So how do you tell a kryptonite mutant from a regular mutant?"

Getting caught up in the words for a moment instead of the meaning, Clark scratched his head. "I don't think there is such a thing as a 'regular mutant'."

Understandably, Conner gave his dad an exasperated look.

"Ah, well, actually, you can't until their abilities don't work on you." Clark gave an apologetic shrug. "In Smallville, it was a good bet that most of the mutants were from kryptonite, but not always."

"Thanks, Dad. That's really helpful," Conner said sarcastically.

Clark repeated his shrug; he really couldn't tell, usually. It had been quite a problem when Clark had gone out into the Real World outside Smallville. He'd gotten used to being immune to mutant abilities, and didn't have the proper in-built caution around villains. Caution had been learned the hard way.

"Well, how do you break mind-control, then?"

"It depends." Clark saw the look on Conner's face and raised a hand, flipping it in the air in an apologetic gesture. "I'm sorry, but it really does! If they're using an object, you try and find the object and break their connection, which oftentimes is breaking the object itself. With witches and warlocks, you persuade them to take it off. With specific commands, sometimes you have to trick a person into thinking they've finished the command and it'll go away. If it's a drug… wait for it to wear off or find the antidote. Sometimes you can talk to people and make them realize they don't really want to do what they're doing, but that's the least reliable."

"Entirely situational," Conner nodded. "Yeah, okay, sorry, you're right."

His son was apologizing? Definitely not a normal teenager. Not that Clark knew what 'normal' was either. He remembered his own teenage years, and some of the incidents from back then.

"You also have to know the person is being controlled," Clark said, his eyes on the wall behind Conner. They'd painted the room when Conner had moved in. Conner wanted black paint. Clark refused, citing his apartment lease and that they'd have to put the room back to normal eventually. They'd settled on a dark midnight blue. It suited the time and the mood right now.

"Oh come on, that should be obvious!"

"Not always. When I was in high school, my best friend was taken by a mutant who breathed on men and controlled them with pheromones. He was in love with her. Madly, deeply, would do anything for her and did. I stood up as best man at their wedding and didn't know anything except that he loved her."

Conner was looking at him skeptically. Clark didn't blame him. Shouldn't Clark have known? He'd been over it a hundred times since then, and even with experience behind him, he still didn't think he would have known. Lex had been in love. Clark had thought at the time that he knew why.

"She was hot. Desiree taught our biology class, and any of us guys in the class would have done anything for her without the mutation. How could I blame him for something I wanted too?"

"That hot?"

"That hot," Clark confirmed.

"Wow…"

Conner's face showed he was imagining that much hotness. Clark suppressed a grin.

"So how'd you break that one?"

"Well, once she'd married him and had his money, Desiree didn't need Lex anymore." Clark frowned at the injustice, remembering it. Why would anybody who had Lex want to get rid of him? The money was nothing compared to having Lex. "She tried to get me to kill Lex for her, and that's when we found out her breath didn't work on me. So she used my dad instead. When the scramble was done, Desiree was under arrest and everybody she'd been controlling was free of the control. I don't really know what happened to break it." Probably a combination of things, including the pain and the time factor.

"Whoa, whoa, back up there." Conner sat bolt upright, back not touching the wall. "Lex? Lex Luthor? As in Dad Two Lex?"

"Um, yeah?" Clark wasn't sure what was so surprising about that. Who else would Desiree marry for money in Smallville?

"BEST FRIENDS?"

"Kon, we went over this…"

Conner flew off the bed and excitedly hovered a foot above the ground. "You said, and I quote, "Lex and I knew each other in Smallville. We were friends for a while." You did **not** say best friends! Certainly not best-man-at-wedding-best-friends! Holy shit, Dad, that's leaving a tad out!"

Okay, maybe Clark had said that. But it was painful to remember… Clark swallowed and looked away from Conner to the wall again.

Conner touched ground. "Come on, Dad… give me something."

"I thought you were going to ask Chloe," Clark ducked away from it again, as he did most things Lex.

"I **did** ask Chloe! But she's so sold on the hate-Lex propaganda that Oliver sells that I can't get anything more out of her than Lex is evil and stay away from him or he'll experiment all over me." Conner snorted. "Yeah, right."

With a sigh, Clark slipped down from the bed to sit on the floor. He hugged his knees to his chest, feeling both Conner's age and his grandparents'. The world changed, and yet it didn't. "Kon, Lex really did do those things. Arthur, Victor, the soldiers, the mutants…"

Conner sat down next to Clark. "Ollie exaggerates because he hates Lex for stupid reasons. You know that. That's why you're not friends with him anymore."

That wasn't exactly how it was. "We're still friends."

Rolling his eyes, Conner rebutted that. "No, you're not. Not like you used to be. Look Dad, I've talked to folks. I know what it was like. I know he dragged you and them into messes, and you'd clean up his messes, but you're the hero and he's just an activist, and that's why now he's a second-rate League member and you're the boss and your hero buddies are the Green Lantern not the Green Arrow, and Flash and Wonder Woman – they're all real heroes too. Not like he is, just going after causes and hell with the truth, let alone the justice."

"Green Arrow is a good person."

"Whatever. I know you'll never say differently since you **are** the hero, but face facts – he exaggerates. Arthur says Lex was fucking with him."

It took Clark by surprise and he flinched, half-coming up off the floor and then crashing back down. He looked with wide eyes at his son. Arthur, Lex… what?

"Fucking **with**! Not fucking! **With**! As in messing with, mucking about with, playing with. Shitting him." Conner waved his hands wildly. "Jesus Christ, Dad!"

"Language, Conner," Clark muttered and then put his head in his hands while his heart stopped racing. That panic attack was due to his own over-active imagination and not much else. But he had dreams sometimes with Lex and experiments and lab tables… the dreams just didn't usually have Arthur in them.

There was an awkward pause before Conner exhaled noisily. "Sorry. I know, superheroes don't swear. Dollar in the swear-box later. Plus interest. Sensitive much, Dad?" Without waiting for an answer, Conner went back to his original subject. "Anyhow, Arthur said now that he's had more experience with land-mammals, he knows Lex was more pissed than serious, and he should have approached it more carefully himself. But he doesn't blame Lex and says he's worked with Lex on some coral research projects since then."

Clark knew about those projects but had carefully not asked details, just made sure Arthur had been okay with it and that they were legitimate. They were, if not totally documented, and Lois hadn't found out anything different. They'd been busy digging out one of Lex's non-legitimate projects at the time, an underground lab for producing restricted chemicals. It wasn't earth-shattering villainy either, but just another illegal thing to tag onto the long, long list…

"Victor doesn't want anything to do with Lex, but he says that it was a government project and he now blames the government a hell of a lot more than he does Lex. He doesn't like Lex and says Lex has the morals of a racketeer, but that he's got more important things to worry about."

That sounded like something Victor would say. Clark let the corner of his mouth creep up.

Conner kept going. "Lex has left him alone since then, and Victor leaves him alone, as long as Lex doesn't dabble in that area again, which per Victor's sources, he hasn't. Lex gave up that contract and refused the next one the government offered."

Lex had backed off of a lot of the human experimentation projects after that. Clark sighed. He really didn't actually **want** to argue with Kon about Lex. He'd carefully avoided Lex for many years, and Lex had done the same; the pain of their broken friendship always there between them. The week before had been the first time Clark had seen Lex outside of news conferences in a really long time.

The wall was really a very interesting shade of blue, flickering colors as the nightlight in the lower plug shaded light upwards, like an alien world, or upside down in the sea. Clark rested his head against the bed. Conner deserved to know more about Lex than just the villain label. But where to begin? Clark could almost hear his father: At the beginning.

"When Lex drove into Smallville for the first time, he ran over a roll of bailing wire and spun out on a bridge. I gave him CPR. He gave me a truck. Dad made me return the truck. We bonded over the returned truck and became friends. He was…" Clark stalled there.

How could he really describe Lex? Clark had been fourteen, Lex twenty-one. Lex was rich and had cool toys. Lex was handsome and had hot girls. Lex listened to Clark, really listened, and he told him things in return. Lex respected Clark. Lex had looked at Clark and made Clark believe that he really was special and not just because of his abilities. The way Lex had looked at Clark…

He'd given Clark everything, and Clark had given him lies. Clark hadn't even realized how much that had hurt Lex, ignoring it like he ignored anything that wasn't Lana or a meteor mutant. He'd loved Lex and never knew it until the Lex he'd known was gone from his life and had left only an angry stranger. Lex had been Clark's best friend and Clark had never had another one like Lex, as disloyal to Lois as he felt for the comparison.

"Were you two… ah… more than friends?" Conner asked, amazement in his voice.

"We were best friends. That was all," Clark replied, still looking at the wall. Such an interesting shade of blue.

"I'm starting to get why Chloe hates Lex, and it doesn't have as much to do with Ollie as I thought." Conner grinned. "Cool."

Clark turned his head to Conner. "Cool?"

"Cool," Conner repeated with emphasis, yet didn't expand on the statement. He grinned at Clark in a goofy manner, showing teeth and sparkles.

Clark laughed, his heart lightening. Conner was such a godsend in his life, becoming both family and friend and fitting into Clark's life like part of a missing puzzle. It eased Clark's heart to have Conner here. It was amazing the way Conner accepted most things in Clark's life; not without questions, but accepting them still. The things that Conner had been through in his short life had been horrific, and yet Conner still loved and wanted to be loved. He accepted love, in all forms, and rarely judged differently.

Reaching out, Clark put an arm around his son's shoulders, and Conner let him. They leaned against each other in comfortable accord.

"Say, why didn't we ever have dinner with Lex like we were planning?" Conner asked, mischievousness written in his tones.

That question deserved both a roll of eyes and a snort accompanying the gesture. Not because of the question, but because of the answer, which Conner knew well. Clark played along and answered anyway. "Because the coward ran away to Europe."

"Morocco."

Clark blinked. "Humm?"

"He's in Morocco, not Europe."

"Africa, Europe… whatever."

"It's a pretty big difference, Dad."

"They're both on the other side of the world."

Conner looked at him in exasperation. "Dad, we can fly."

Repressing a sigh, Clark fought the temptation to say "no shit." If Conner thought that by now Clark didn't know that… The point was that Lex had run away. He hadn't just run to New York or California, he'd actually flown across the ocean to get away from them. Clark initially hadn't gone after Lex because confronting a pissed-off Lex usually led to arguments, and a Lex that had run to Europe... Moracco, that was a seriously pissed-off Lex. Perhaps, though, a week was enough time. Clark thought about it, tempted.

Conner grinned, "We could go make Lex dinner now."

Seriously tempted. But, "It's the middle of the night."

"Early morning, actually." Conner glanced at his alarm clock. "Half-past midnight here. That would be... five-thirty there. Six am by the time we get to him. Perfect time for breakfast. If he's still asleep, breakfast in bed."

Clark wondered if he'd ever disconcerted his dad sometimes as Conner did him. Pulling things like world clock comparisons out of the air and knowing chemical compositions of things like gun powder and arsenic. Force-fed knowledge that Conner used easily and without thinking twice. Maybe he really was too smart for high school. But then there were also the times that Conner didn't know a participle from a predicate. He was brilliant in some areas, and other areas… not. Much like a teenager.

There was a hand being held out to him, Conner standing and inviting Clark up as well. "Well, Dad?" The words were a challenge and an invitation, as was the glint in his eye.

Putting his hand in his son's, Clark let himself be assisted up. "Okay."

"What, really?" Conner's grin lit his whole face and body too, like a sun shining in the dark room.

"Really," Clark answered. He'd never gone after Lex before, Lex had always been the one to return to him. Even all the others – his friends, his lovers, his enemies – Clark hadn't pursued any of them; they'd all pursued him. Maybe it was time Clark changed his ways.

... ... ...

The hotel Lex was staying at was expensive, of course. Also of course, Lex had the penthouse set of rooms, probably the whole top floor. In some ways, that made it easier. They flew once over the building and then Conner zoomed in to land. Clark caught his arm before they got close.

"Security."

"We're faster than the cameras and sensors – I've been practicing with Chloe."

"Then she should have also been teaching you about when there's more than basic security on a building. And whatever hotel Lex Luthor is staying in will be state-of-the art, even if it looks last century." Clark pulled out a device that Chloe had built for him specifically for occasions like this. Though, Chloe had probably not been thinking of making the enemy breakfast in bed.

Clark turned it on and then he and Conner sped through. Picking locks faster than the speed of light and darting into the darkness of the halls. Over the years, Clark had picked up a few tricks from Bart.

They got in and paused in the living room. A quick scan with x-ray had shown nobody around, even in the bedroom.

"What now?" Conner looked at Clark questioningly.

Good question. Clark hadn't thought of Lex not being here. He hadn't thought of Lex sleeping somewhere else, with... no. For that matter, they were lucky Lex hadn't had anybody over with him. Impulsive actions weren't very well thought out.

"This is Lex's place, right? We didn't get the wrong hotel penthouse?"

"It's his." Lex didn't exactly 'move into' places, but Clark recognized the familiar sights of a book on the arm of the couch, an expensive water bottle on the dresser, the way the arm chair had been turned to partially face the window. Lex was here. Except he wasn't.

They might have stood like that for minutes or hours, undecided on the next action, yet they were saved from it by the door opening.

Lex walked in and wearily shut the door behind him, only noticing his guests when he was half-way down the hall. It underscored the exhaustion that lined his whole body; a physical tell that disappeared as he stopped and his eyes narrowed.

"Hey," Conner stepped forward a little awkwardly. "We promised you dinner. Want breakfast instead?"

Lex shook his head, not in denial as much as to apparently clear his head.

"Um, well, it could be dinner, if you don't want breakfast." Conner had misinterpreted the shake. "Since you haven't been to bed yet."

The silence stretched out a little more while Lex stared at them with that unwavering narrowed gaze. Conner started fidgeting desperately and Clark was starting to think this really hadn't been such a good idea when Lex finally replied.

"And how do you know I haven't been to bed?" Lex asked in a dry voice that gave absolutely nothing away of his feelings. "I could have been sleeping elsewhere for all you uninvited guests know. Came home to change."

Clark blushed a little. Yeah, he'd just been thinking the same thing. How he could possibly not have thought of it before they flew over… wishful thinking, probably. However other than the 'uninvited guests' part, Lex hadn't yet told them 'no'. That was a good sign. When Lex was angry, he usually let Clark know it right away, not engaged in banter. Of course, Lex was talking with Conner, not Clark, but still… Clark told his mental thoughts to shut up and let Conner run this.

"You weren't sleeping anywhere else," Conner said confidently. "By the creases, you've been wearing that suit for at least eighteen hours, probably more. From the placement and angle, you've been sitting for most of that time, and not reclining. You smell like paper and ink and second-hand cigars, a bit of perfume and cologne, not yours, all mingled together. You **don't** smell like sleep or um..." Conner ran out of words at that point as he obviously tried not to articulate bed-without-sleep smells. He blushed.

At the end of the speech, instead of answering, Lex switched his attention to Clark. Clark was staring at Conner in amazement at the analysis. That sort of detail wasn't something he'd taught Conner, and it reminded him instead of Sherlock Holmes. At the weight of Lex's gaze, Clark returned the glance to share the thought. However, Lex had a different question than Clark's.

"Super smell too? I don't recall that being in your repertoire," Lex's voice was still dry, yet there was now an underlying tone to it, like he was suppressing laughter.

"I mostly try and ignore it," Clark answered with a slight grimace. "There are some powers you just **don't** want to be super."

"You filter stuff out, Dad," Conner offered. "Like the hearing and the seeing. Zoom in when you want to and don't use it when you don't."

"Yes, well, I had troubles with the hearing and seeing when they first came up too," Clark blushed a bit at remembering the locker room incidents. "I lived on a farm. Believe me, it was better just to try and ignore that one rather than control it."

Lex's mouth curved up.

"What does the farm have to do with it?" Conner asked, puzzled.

Both Clark and Lex looked at Conner in disbelief.

"Cows," Lex said succinctly. "And their by-products. Hasn't he taken you down there yet?"

"We've been for the weekend a couple of times. I, uh, don't go out to the barn much."

Clark rolled his eyes. "Kon, you're invulnerable. The cows and horses can't hurt you even if they step on you."

"They're taller than I am!"

"The mutant who tried to beat you up last week was twice your size! You didn't have any problems with **her**."

"I'm allowed to hit mutants! You won't let me hurt the cows."

"Why would you want to hurt the cows?"

"Because they're scary."

"Oh for…" They had been over this argument before. Clark just couldn't figure it out. He'd never run into anybody who had disliked cows and horses as much as Conner did. Martha simply laughed whenever Conner was over and gave him another plate of cookies and didn't make him go out to the barn for anything. "Okay, no cows. But why not the horses?" Everybody, even the city-slickers, loved the horses usually.

Conner flushed. "They're scary too. Have you seen their teeth?"

"They eat hay!"

"And fingers too if the fingers are in the way!"

With a snort, Lex stopped watching the argument and walked past the two superheroes. As he went down the hall, Lex reached up and loosened his necktie, taking it off. Then he disappeared into one of the side rooms.

If Lex hadn't been grinning through most of the argument, Clark would have been more worried. Well, grinning for current-day Lex; it was more of relaxation around the mouth and a hint of a curve on the left side and the faintest of lines by the eyes.

Conner, on the other hand, was distinctly worried, not having picked up on the subtle signs. Clark clapped a hand on Conner's shoulder to reassure him and gestured for Conner to follow Lex. Clark followed Conner.

The necktie was draped over a lamp. Cufflinks were on the table beside the lamp. Lex was undoing the buttons on his shirt as they watched. Clark fixed his gaze on the smooth skin being revealed inch by inch and swallowed involuntarily.

"Uh, I guess you want us to leave?" Conner scuffed his foot as he looked about as cute as an anxious fourteen-year-old could.

"When did I say that?" Lex sat down on the bed and worked his shoes off. "Breakfast sounds good."

Conner brightened. That was really the only description for it, as his whole attitude perked up and his smile lit the room. "Really? Cool!" Without another pause, he zoomed off in search of the kitchen.

Lex looked at the empty spot for a moment and then glanced at Clark. "That used to be your smile."

"I, uh... I'll go help him." Clark blindly turned and made his way down the hall. His smile? That was Lex's. And what was that look that Lex had given him when he said that?

In the penthouse kitchen, Conner was getting out all the pots and pans and unpacking the groceries they'd brought. Clark helped him, cracking the eggs into the bowl and mixing them. Stirring carefully, but not so completely that it was all one mix, leaving in some strings of white yolk. Lex had liked it that way at the farm – his cooks were always so thorough, so complete on their mixing. He'd enjoyed the variation on the texture and taste. Clark hoped he still did.

"Hey, Dad Two – so how was your day?" Conner cheerfully asked as he flipped pancakes.

"Long, boring, full of corporate idiots. On the verge of taking over another company. And yours?" Lex replied sarcastically as he leaned on the doorway. Dressed now in raw silk that imitated cotton, loose weave, grey long-sleeved shirt, loose wool pants, bare feet.

It was the bare feet that got Clark's attention and almost burnt the scrambled eggs. The rest of the outfit was similar to the things Lex used to wear all the time. Clark hadn't known Lex still wore things like that; he only wore suits in public.

"It was really fun! We went out to meet Batman and I got to practice with Robin, I mean Nightwing, who knows all about being a sidekick. There's a new Robin now and Tim's learning from Nightwing too. Bat's a bit of a stick-in-the-mud, but I just ignore his weirder lessons – Dad has a secret nod for when I can do that." Conner continued on cheerfully rambling about their day.

Lex turned a skeptical raised eyebrow onto Clark.

Clark paused while frying the bacon. He glanced at Conner as the boy cheerfully told all sorts of details of the Justice League. Clark looked at Lex in the doorway, calmly standing there waiting for Clark to tell Conner to shut up lest Lex use those things against them.

How many times had Clark wanted to tell Lex everything back when they'd been young?

With a shrug, Clark turned back to the stove without saying anything. Behind him, he felt the weight of Lex's surprise, however he didn't turn around again. He trusted Lex with Conner's secrets, and all that accompanied them. After all, over the years, Lex hadn't used Clark's secrets against him. Fought with him, yes, but not… not as he could have, knowing what he knew.

When he was young, Clark had wanted to have somebody to talk to about things. His parents and Pete had been there for him, but Clark had wanted Lex there with him as well. He'd been too scared. Too scared to tell Lex, too scared to lose him, and thereby lost him. He wasn't going to force Conner into the same wrong choices.

Conner asked Lex a question about business, turning it back to Lex's day instead of his. This time, instead of deflecting, Lex answered and they held a conversation that Clark listened to without joining in. His heart ached at the easy give and take that Lex and Conner were enjoying. Lex was still guarded in his answers, yet he was conversing, which was more than Clark had had from him in years.

If Clark had told Lex everything back when they'd been young, would Lex be his enemy today? It was something Clark had often wondered. There were so many missed opportunities, so many times when Clark's lies had turned Lex further down the wrong road. None of the reasons for it seemed as important now as they had back then.

The conversation finally stopped when they served breakfast. Lex moved out to the dining room while Clark served the eggs, pancakes, bacon, and orange juice. Conner brought out the butter and syrup and then paused as he reached inside the last bag. He pulled out a bottle of ketchup and stared at it for a second before shrugging and putting it back in the bag and sitting down at his own place.

Lex put down his fork and knife and glared at Clark.

With a grin, Clark leaned over and grabbed the bag Conner had abandoned. The glare Lex was giving him was actually a good thing. He brought the bottle back out and held it in the air, not directing it towards anybody. "I don't know if anybody wants this..." He tried to make his voice light and teasing, without letting on how much he was counting on it. A way to reconnect to their past, perhaps, in this future.

Conner looked up from shoveling his pancakes down. "Eww... Ketchup? No way."

With a swift move that bordered on super-speed, Lex snatched the bottle from Clark. "You don't see this," he instructed Conner before he squeezed some onto his eggs.

Conner stopped eating and stared. Clark grinned and started eating his own eggs, sans condiments.

"Oh shut up," Lex muttered at Conner as he ate the ketchup-covered eggs. "Just wait until **you** get to college and see what weird habits you pick up then."

"But you don't keep any ketchup in your kitchen…" Conner was still watching in fascination.

Lex shrugged. "Against a proper Luthor-image. Hotel staff talk, housekeepers talk… anything that gets an 'eww' from a teenager gets scorn from the corporate world, even things as innocuous as what you eat in the morning."

Clark was extremely tempted to ask where illegal research projects fell on that scale.

"Dad!" Conner said, shocked.

And Clark had apparently said that out loud. He flushed, mumbling an apology.

Lex snorted. "Are you kidding? That stuff is manna in making. Political and corporate professionals eat it up like crazy; even a rumor of something unethical will bump stock at least three points, and the behind the scenes credit is good for scores of transactions. After all, you have to be good to be evil. Any chimp can do things by the rules; it takes brains and balls to thumb your nose at the law and get away with it."

After drinking a sip of juice, Lex added absently, "Which is simply a statement answering a general question and is not to be taken as an admission or implication of any wrongdoing."

Clark pinched the bridge of his nose and fiercely held back everything he wanted to say.

"Are you saying **that's** why you do it? Just to get your company ahead?!"

Clark glanced up, but no, that was Conner who had said that this time, not him.

"I disavow any inferences you might have made from my statement," Lex replied calmly.

"That's a really shitty reason," Conner informed Lex, ignoring the disavowal.

"Do you have a better one?" Lex asked Conner, mockery laced through his tone.

Clark stood up. "I'm getting more eggs, anybody want some?" He asked desperately.

Lex looked at the pile of scrambled eggs still left on Clark's plate and raised an eyebrow before lowering it with a twisted grin. "If you could bring back the orange juice, please," Lex requested, enjoying Clark's discomfort.

Conner snorted and stuffed a pancake in his mouth without cutting it up first.

Opening the refrigerator door, Clark stuck his head in it and leaned into the cool air, trying to breathe in the calmness. Arctic. Calm. White. Oh, hell. He was having breakfast with Lex; there was no point to being calm. Clark got the orange juice and the eggs from the stove and brought them back. He put a couple more pancakes on Conner's plate too.

"Thank you," Lex said politely as Clark poured the orange juice. He also took some more eggs, squeezing the ketchup on them and eating with all evidence of enjoyment.

Shaking his head, Conner turned to Clark, "So how'd you find out about the ketchup, if it's such a state secret?"

"When Lex was staying at our place." Clark grinned. "One of the things he and my dad had in common."

Lex grinned too, but it was tinged with … something Clark couldn't read behind those blue-grey eyes. "The ketchup was on the table when I sat down for breakfast. It was automatic reflex to reach for it."

"Down at the farm? Back in the days?"

"The days?" Lex raised his eyebrow again. "Yes, at the Kent Farm. I'd been disinherited and kicked out of the castle and the Kents were good enough to put me up for awhile until my brother decided he didn't want the Luthor name, just the Luthor money, and Dad let me back in."

"Well, Clark hasn't gotten around to telling me much of anything, so they're 'the days' until I get a better label for it. I'd say high school, but you weren't in it, so that wouldn't fit. Smallville days work for you but not for him. I dunno, the mutant days? Except that never really stops…"

"Call them the days of legend," Lex advised, with a glance at Clark. His face had that same expression on… it wasn't quite regret, it wasn't quite longing, it was something deeper and more hidden and Clark wanted to reach out and touch it, to touch Lex and cry for those days of legend once again.

Conner put down his fork. "Wait a second… it takes **months** for a legal disinheritance to get through, if not years, and then it can't just reversed just like that. And if it wasn't a legal disinheritance, then you couldn't legally have been forced out of the place you were staying, until the paperwork went through."

"Legally, Conner, legally. What were we just talking about legalities?" Lex folded his fingers around his glass and stroked it in a way ultimately familiar to Clark; a story was forthcoming. "If my father says "get out," I don't argue with him."

Glancing up, Clark frowned just the tiniest bit. He wasn't sure if the use of current tense was deliberate on Lex's part or just a matter of Lex's memories. Lionel Luthor hadn't been around for a few years to tell Lex to do anything, unless he'd figured out a way to talk from the grave.

For once, Lex ignored Clark's reactions, intent on Conner and his story. "When I was in college, two months away from graduating, Dad told me to change my ways or I'd be disinherited. I ignored him, being only two months away. What could he do in that time?" Lex sipped his orange juice delicately, putting a deliberate pause in the story.

Clark rolled his eyes at the theatrics and went back to eating, noting with amusement that Conner was totally riveted on Lex's every word. Clark remembered what that had been like.

"I found out. Within days of my defiance, the dormitories called me in to say payment for the rooms had been stopped and my meal credits revoked. The academic board called me in to say my tuition had been retroactively cancelled. The dean of business studies called me in to say the scholarships from LuthorCorp for all students awarded them had been withdrawn. The president of the university called me in to say that funding on the three new buildings being built on campus had dried up and they were stuck half-way through the projects."

Conner's mouth hung open. "What did you do?"

Lex shrugged, drawing his fingers down the glass. "I talked to the deans, changed my major back to business administration, and then went out and got drunk and high." He wrinkled his nose. "I woke up eight days later in a city four hundred miles away. To this day, I have absolutely no idea how I got there." His eyes drifted across the room to the window and his voice softened. "But the university got its funding back." Returning his focus to Conner, Lex finished, "Ever since then, if Dad says I'm disinherited, I make sure to get out of there quickly, whether or not it's legal."

And there was that present tense again. While the rest of the story had been in past. Clark glanced up, but Lex was still concentrating on Conner and didn't seem to notice anything amiss.

"Wait, whoa, back up… you… changed your major back?" Conner's voice was still stunned and his expression was disbelieving.

Clark poured some more syrup on his pancakes and finished them up.

"Ah, yes. The whole reason for the disinheritance… I had changed my major from my father's approved business administration to a double major in physics and chemistry. I waited until the last possible filing date, but that wasn't enough for Dear Dad. For the Luthor heir, you see, it wouldn't do to have it shown publically to have interests that diverged from LuthorCorp standards."

"But you do **research** in those areas! Wouldn't it make more sense to have majors in them?"

"If I was going to be a LuthorCorp researcher, then yes. As the future head of the company? Too specific. Business was the only acceptable degree." Lex arched his brows at Conner, daring him to come up with another objection.

"Oh that's just stupid!" Conner threw down his napkin, flummoxed by the illogic. He looked at Clark and frowned. "Wait a sec, did this actually happen? It didn't happen; you're just putting me on."

Lex blinked, surprised. "Why would you say that?"

From Lex's reaction, one would think, and would probably be right, that nobody had ever disbelieved a Luthor-story before. It was the way Lex told them, full of bluntness and self-depreciation with a wry twist of humor that had his audience outraged and near-laughing at the same time. How could they not be true, as outrageous as they were? Clark smiled fondly into his pancakes, remembering times past.

Conner pointed at Clark, "Because he hasn't turned a hair! You're putting me on."

Clark swallowed his pancakes and wiped his mouth with the napkin. "Oh, it probably happened. There would be records on that sort of thing – not in the university official ones, but the people of the time. Lex's dorm-mates, the deans, etcetera. Don't believe everything Lex says in a press-conference, but for a Luthor-tale? Those are usually true."

"Then why are you so calm about it!"

"Yes, why?" Lex breathed as he brought his glass up for another sip, his eyes laughing at them.

Clark snorted. "You get used to it. I admit, you'll never forget your first; the first will be etched in your memory forever. But after the tenth or twentieth 'horrible Luthor-upbringing tale', you… well, you don't exactly get used to it because they're still pretty darn miserable, but being shocked at them gets old."

Lex leaned back in his chair, his eyes still laughing. "So, what was **your** first? I have to admit, I don't remember." Lex's voice dropped down and caressed Clark all over, spinning the first sentence to cover so many more meanings than what he was speaking of.

Shivering, Clark tried to put off the effect that voice still had on him. It was hard, though, buried in the memories as he was. "Troy. It was Troy."

"Ah," Lex's voice continued with the caressing and dropped into nostalgia with the single syllable.

Conner made an inquiring noise while he picked up his forgotten fork and started on his pancakes again.

"Um, Lex's father had given him a model of the siege of Troy, this really incredible model about five feet across, detailed, hand-carved wooden figures. You were… ten?"

"Nine," Lex replied, smiling slightly, "Ten was Nietzsche."

"Okay, ew on the book, but what was wrong with the model? It sounds cool." Conner looked a bit wistful. Clark instantly resolved to get Conner every present he'd never had.

"It wasn't a play-toy, it was a tool to learn strategy." Lex had lost the smile. "Along with the model, I also had historians for teachers and an ex-General in to tell me what they could have done better. Weeks and months of us pouring over that thing, while I was never allowed to touch it."

Conner dropped his fork, splattering the pancake and syrup over the table.

"Yeah," Clark sighed. No, one never did forget their first Luthor-horror tale.

"How can you be so **calm**!?" Conner asked in horror.

"He likes the reactions," Clark pointed his thumb at Lex. "You stop encouraging it after awhile."

Lex shrugged with another grin, admitting it without words. "Though you do it, too."

"Do what?"

"You like the reactions of the non-initiated." Lex looked at him, sharing a memory.

Clark searched through his memories, but couldn't come with whatever one Lex was thinking about.

Lex read it off Clark's face and turned to Conner instead. "I was over at their farm for a visit, just dropped by to talk to Clark about something. We were up in the loft and he offered me some beef jerky. I was half-way through my piece when he says, "Oh, by the way, you remember our old bull, Bullock? You're eating him.""

Conner's fork dropped down again and he shoved his plate away. "Omigod. You're kidding." He turned wounded eyes on Clark.

Clark threw up his hands, "I wasn't **trying** to get you! It was an honest… I mean, I didn't really think anything of it. We'd just gotten the jerky back from the processing plant, and it came out better than we'd expected, Bullock had been so old."

"You're not helping," Lex said, laughing.

"It wasn't anything weird, it just **was**! I lived on a farm, for pity's sake."

"When you sit down to dinner at the Kents'," Lex confided to Conner, "everything on the dinner plate is home-grown, including the steak."

Conner looked at the remnants of the breakfast table in horror. He pushed his plate even further away.

"Oh for God's sake…" Clark muttered, "Where do you **think** food comes from?"

"The store," Lex and Conner said in unison and then grinned at each other.

Clark rolled his eyes, though he secretly was enthralled by the moment of unity between Kon and Lex. Something that he wanted so desperately, that he hadn't known he'd wanted. Both of them, both Kon and Lex, in Clark's life. Conner filled a missing piece of his life; Clark suspected that Lex would make them both whole.

Before Clark could say anything, though, either to continue the banter or turn it serious, the outside world intervened.

The explosion was on the other side of the city, too far away for the building they were in to be affected, but close enough that for super-hearing it sounded like it was next door. Clark turned his head, flipping into x-ray vision to check. It was an industrial plant, looked like the one explosion only, no more imminent. With an internal sigh, Clark turned back to the table, preparing to let it go.

He'd forgotten he wasn't the only one sitting there. Conner was already half-way out of the room, blurring into his suit on the way to the balcony. Speeding up himself, Clark grabbed his arm, holding him tightly. "Kon, no!"

"Let go! They need help." Conner tried to shake Clark off, but Clark held steady.

"Not ours. Listen closer, look – there's people on the way. The local firemen are responding. There's a superhero making his way in. I see others coming to help."

"We can help too! Let me go. They'll die."

"They've already died," Clark said bluntly. "Everybody who was in the path of the explosion is dead; they died as it happened. What responders are doing now is rescuing those further away that the fire threatens."

"And we can help with that." Conner turned and glared. "We are superheroes. Why are you even arguing with me about this? We should be out there helping."

Clark clenched his teeth against his own instincts and replied with the logic he'd learned. "What reason can we possibly give for Superman and Superboy being in Casablanca? What will they say when we show up? Particularly with Lex Luthor in town for business. We might be able to fabricate something, but what damage will it do to Lex? Conner, we **can't** go. Not without endangering ourselves."

"We're invulnerable," Conner said bitterly, though he relaxed his stance. He looked over at Lex, eyes pleading.

Clark didn't dare take his attention off Conner to see what Lex was doing, and neither did he relax his grip on Conner's arm.

After a pause where Lex didn't say anything, Conner returned his attention to Clark, anger radiating through every part of his body. "Some superhero you are!" he spat. "Caring more about secret identities than the people."

Clark closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, he knew the color was a pale ice blue, lighter than the public normally saw. Open to the absolute fullest on his abilities, Clark concentrated, looking through thousands of miles of air, curving around the world as he sought his goal. He stretched his hearing to listen where he looked, a skill hard-taught.

"In Metropolis right now, there are two, no three, complexes on fire. An apartment building, two warehouses. People are dying in the apartment building, trapped in their rooms filled with smoke. In the apartment next to it, I see domestic abuse in three units. Next building, somebody is stabbing another, an argument. A gun. In the street, a mugging. Suicide Slums is living up to its name, or dying to it. Four bodies… another becoming a body now. Corruption deals. Rapes. There are … at least thirty different people calling for Superman right now in Metropolis. Another nineteen are cursing his name as their loved ones are in hospitals and morgues. There's a car crash on 28th and Broadway, SUV overturned, Prius crushed. A joyride will spin out of control at any moment now, texting while driving. There's a—"

"Enough," Conner said, slumping in Clark's hold. "Enough. I get the point."

Slowly, Clark pulled himself back in. His whole body was alert, sensing out the dangers. Around them, he could feel not just the explosion that had gotten their attention but all the other issues. There were murders happening, suicides, assaults… He couldn't let go of all his powers just yet and it was an effort to stay grounded; Clark could feel himself floating above the floor and he tried to find where gravity was again. Trained for supernatural response, it was hard to return to being human.

"We only heard the explosion because we were here," Clark said slowly, trying to talk to Conner while he was still resettling himself.

"I've **got** it, Dad!" Conner said bitterly, yanking at his arm and breaking Clark's grip finally. "There's always something going on, we can't get to them all, we need to stay sane and protect ourselves, yadda, yadda, yadda." He glanced at the window but didn't try to leave.

Clark bent his head, sorrowing for all those dying, and for his son, wanting to save them.

"I suppose," Conner remarked scornfully, "It's because you're an alien. At least I'm half-human."

Before Clark could react, Lex unexpectedly stepped in, his voice cold. "Considering whose human genes you have, that's a stupid statement. You won't find anybody more human than Clark, whether they're earthling or alien." Lex walked around so he could look at Conner. "And as for 'getting' the dilemma that every human-service provider has, walk in their shoes first. Nurse, social worker, fireman, policeman, EMT, or superhero."

Conner didn't back down. "I **am** a superhero!"

Lex tilted his head to one side. "Really. Then you've done what Superman did at the start of his career? You've spent forty-eight hours responding to each and every thing you can see? Flying from one emergency to the next? Going from the assault to the fire to the rape to the car crash? So fast that all that can be seen is a blur from scene to scene. Not stopping for anything that wasn't an emergency. Ignoring all calls from family and friends and heading only to the next victim. Preventing everything that could possibly be prevented in one large city. Dumping so many victims of crimes not prevented in time into hospitals that emergency rooms had to call in extra staff. Crying at bodies and moving on. Not stopping to accept any thanks from those saved or the emergency personnel assisting.

"And when those forty-eight hours were up and the signal pierces through your bones to tell you those hours were done, did you go on despite it? So focused on rescuing that nothing else mattered at all. Rest, sleep, cleanliness, anything… And when your body, as alien and super as it is, when your body couldn't hold up anymore, did you stop in a hospital and watch as those you tried to save died anyhow? Turning away from those who thanked you for trying?

"Have you spent a day doing nothing but crying in your mother… your parent's arms for all that you could not do?" Lex shook his head. "Until you have done that, I don't think you can say you know all there is to superheroing."

Conner closed his open mouth, swallowing loudly. He hesitantly turned from Lex to Clark again. "Dad?"

Clark couldn't meet Conner's eyes. It was too painful. He walked from the dining room out to the living room and rested his head against the glass window. There were days when he still wanted to do that. To just go out and rescue. There were so many people who needed him, who called out to him. Metropolis was one city full of need, and beyond Metropolis, there was a state, and a country, and a world. There were so many people out there that could be saved.

"Dad, I'm sorry." Conner's hand touched Clark's arm hesitantly. "I shouldn't have said that. I didn't… I was angry, I didn't think."

"It's alright," Clark whispered. "I want to save them, too." He turned to Conner and gathered his son into his arms, seeking comfort and trying to give it.

They held each other for a moment, but Conner broke off the embrace before Clark was ready to let go.

"I, uh, I'm going to..." Conner gestured down the hallway and then went that way.

Lex shook his head, the coldness still in his eyes.

Clark sighed. "Give him the moment, Lex. He needs to be alone for a bit. He's fourteen and he's been through a lot. He just wants to save the world. It's hard to be told you can't."

"Something you know well." Lex's voice was remote. It should have been warm, with everything that he'd just defended Clark with, but it wasn't. Lex's voice was cold and distant, granite where there should have been water.

Clark looked at Lex, at the older, harder Lex before him. So similar yet so different from his friend of youth. Clark took a step forward, wishing he could reach out to Lex. "I couldn't save you..." he whispered.

Lex clamped his jaw tightly and a muscle in the side of his face twitched. "Did you even try?" he asked.

A kryptonite knife through the heart would have hurt less. Even more so because Clark knew he deserved it. "I made mistakes. If I could change things... if I had the power of time travel, I would go back. There are so many things..." Clark involuntarily took another step towards Lex, pulled towards him. "I should have told you."

The cold light in Lex's blue eyes faded, leaving a matching anguish behind it. "I shouldn't have pushed. I knew you had a secret, but I had no idea how big a secret it was. Regardless, I should have trusted you."

"If I could change things, I would go back and tell you. I would rescue you from Belle Reve, I'd keep you from marrying Helen." Clark remembered other things. "I'd not blow up the spaceship and kill my unborn sister in my mother's womb." He swallowed. "But most of all, I'd save you. So many times I missed the chance. I failed you in Belle Reve, I failed you before that when I left you. I would tell you everything if I could do it over again."

Lex took the final step closer to Clark and they were as close to each other as they had been when they were young. "I wouldn't build that room. I would get rid of the Porsche. I wouldn't hire Nixon. Or Hamilton. I would leave your secrets to you and try instead to just be your friend without them." He grinned without the gesture making it to his eyes. "I wouldn't marry Helen." Lex lifted a hand and didn't quite touch Clark. "If I could travel through time..."

"You can't."

Clark and Lex jerked a step away from each other and looked at Conner.

Conner stood there with reddened eyes and watched them with sorrow and pain etched on his face. "Time travel doesn't solve anything. If the universe is made up of parallel worlds, then all you'd be doing would be to move your consciousness to another stream, leaving your original world behind for some fantasy you think might be better. If the universe is a single stream..." Conner gulped. "If you change time, you'd be giving up on anything and everything in the world right now because it wasn't perfect enough for you, wiping it out of existence for something else. It would be like killing a clone for having green eyes instead of blue."

It took a couple of seconds for that last sentence to sink in. "But," Clark whispered as the horror descended down, "my eyes **are** green."

"I know." Conner's voice hitched, and then the tears spilled over and down while he stood there silently shaking.

Clark and Lex moved at nearly the same moment, reaching out to Conner, gathering him in, holding him tightly as Conner reached back for them.

Encased in the three-way hug, Conner ducked his head and buried his tears between their bodies.

Lex looked over Conner's head to meet Clark's gaze, the pain shared. Conner had said before that there had been more clones, and those that had not met the tests had failed. Clark hadn't realized before that it was not just failing the conditioning but also the cloning itself. How many had there been? Perfect Clark clones with green eyes, but Superman had blue so therefore there must have been something wrong with them. Perfect Lex clones, with too many human genes to be Superman. The ones in-between. Had some of them had red hair instead of brown?

Clark bent his head down until his forehead touched Lex's. His right hand was around Conner, his left held Lex. He wouldn't ever change the timeline, even if he found a time machine, because he wanted this right now. Clark may not have saved Lex back then, and he may not have saved the other children, but he had Conner and Lex right now and he wasn't giving them up.

Thinking things like that rarely worked out just the way Clark thought they would. Even as he knew that this was what he wanted more than anything, Clark felt Lex's body stiffen and his embrace loosen from theirs.

"No..." A sinking feeling in his heart, Clark raised his head to see the look in Lex's gaze turn from compassion to panic. Blue eyes trapped and cornered, tricked into the cage without realizing it. Lex had been going through the same thoughts that Clark had, and he was coming to a very different conclusion.

Lex pulled out of the hug in a quick jerk that disentangled him completely. He backed up warily, gaze not leaving Clark. His jaw was clenched tightly and his face was pale. In his eyes was pain combined with terror, and his attention was riveted on Clark.

"Lex," Clark breathed, knowing what was coming next and completely helpless to prevent it.

Conner looked at Lex in bewilderment. "Dad Two? What—"

And within the instant, all the pain changed to anger. Lex cut Conner off harshly, "Don't call me that!" Hate and fury radiated from every line of his tensely held body. "An accident of cloning doesn't give you any rights." His fierce gaze switched to Clark, "Or you! You, never ever again."

Lex's mouth twisted into something bitter and hateful. When he spoke again, his voice was low and dangerous, a cobra about to strike. "If you staged all this to have the happy family moment and expected me to come out of it saying this is the start of a beautiful friendship… I would say I'd been there, done that, and have the t-shirt in my vault. Never again, you bastard." He suddenly whirled around, striking at a vase on a table and knocking it down. As it broke into shards, Lex hissed, "Get out. Get out of here now. You came in uninvited, and you can take yourself out the same way."

"But—"

Clark clamped a hand over Conner's mouth and backed them both away, warily watching Lex.

"Get OUT!" Lex picked up another vase.

Clark flew out to the sounds of shattered ceramics, Conner held tightly in his arms. Behind them, he could hear the sounds of more destruction behind wreaked upon the hotel penthouse.

He didn't let go of Conner until they were mid-way over the Atlantic ocean, at which point he also breathed. The breath came out on a strangled cry. He hovered in the air and wanted to scream.

"Lex..." Clark said instead, the name a wish and a regret and a memory of things lost. The person he wanted was two thousand miles and fourteen years away and didn't want him. Lex knew only too well what Clark did to his friends, and he didn't want that again.

"What happened?" Conner asked, floating beside Clark. Conner's blue eyes were full of hurt innocence, pain and bewilderment in equal measures.

Clark couldn't actually remember Lex's eyes ever being quite like that. Even when Clark had known Lex, there was already a mask to hide the pain. If Lex had looked at him like Conner did now, maybe Clark would have realized sooner what his lies were doing to his friend.

"Lex... remembered what it's like to care," Clark replied, fighting to breathe enough to say that much.

"But... isn't that a good thing?" Conner turned to look back across the ocean, though he made no motion to return.

A laugh. A sob. Something in-between. "Everybody Lex has ever cared about has hurt him. His dad, his mom." Clark had once peeled through the layers of loving worship behind Lex's tales of his mom to find out it was mostly fantasy. The hidden sorrow side-by-side with the mockery of his dad's gifts. "His wives. Me." Clark gasped for air. "Me, most of all. Why would he want to go back to that?"

Conner was silent, trying to understand. "So, he chooses the villain because it's...?"

"He's not choosing anything except to avoid the pain. He hurts, he lashes out. We... we cracked the wall, and he panicked."

"He's conditioned," Conner breathed. "Mind-controlled."

"Uh..." Clark blinked. "Not—"

Conner waved him off. "I didn't mean literally. I meant... what we were talking about earlier. I was raised to destroy you, to attack you and follow the commands of my creators. Lex... was brought up to rule. Nothing else was in his life, if what you said about the Luthor-tales was true."

"They're all true. All the ones you've never heard too." As a teenager, Clark hadn't really comprehended just how remarkable it was that Lex was as sane as he'd been. Lex had been reaching out for love, defying his father to get it. However, every time he reached, Lex was hurt by those he'd reached out to. Each and every one of them. Small wonder Lex had his fortress now inside of himself, more solitary than Clark's fortress in the Arctic.

"So this time, his conditioning held." Conner's mouth firmed. "But we won't give up. We'll try again, and next time, or the time after, we'll make a crack big enough for him to get through."

The analogy didn't quite work for Clark. He had seen Lex's eyes changing as he realized he was starting to care, and how Lex **knew** there was only pain ahead. The anger was to cover up the fear. Conner, though… Conner didn't know pain like that. For all that Conner had been through, he had only been hurt and betrayed by those he hated and loathed. He didn't know what it was like to go through that at the hands of those he loved. Clark didn't **want** Conner to ever have that sort of experience. His son had hope, and Clark wouldn't take that from him. Conner still had love, and that was a gift indeed.

"He's not a villain," Conner said, his voice shaking slightly, hopeful but not certain.

Clark thought of the penthouse being destroyed at this moment. He thought of the corporate meeting that Lex would walk into later this day still full of anger and hate. There would be no soft gloves at this next meeting; the take-over would be brutal and harsh. Heads would roll and positions lost. All for Lex's pain.

Clark thought about what Lionel Luthor would have done in his son's place. Had done. Without the pain, but from sheer malice of having been crossed.

"Lex is not a villain." Perhaps he never had been. Made the wrong choices, lashed out at the wrong targets, set things into motion that he hadn't planned for or controlled, but not a villain. Clark breathed out, willing it, trying to believe it.

"And we're going to get him back." Conner spoke more firmly, sure now of his dad's response.

"We're going to get him back," Clark agreed. It would take some time; especially now that Lex had been forewarned of their intentions. The wall would be built up stronger and with kryptonite mixed in. There would be no sauntering in for another morning breakfast. But they would do it. Clark and Conner would work at it, and they would bring those walls down slowly enough that Lex would know there was more than pain outside of them, that there was also love out there waiting for him.

Lex may not ever trust Clark again the way he had when they were young, and Clark knew that, but Conner would never have anything but love for Lex and that might be enough. If Lex could understand that there was a person out here who loved him unconditionally... the way Clark should have and hadn't. Conner, though... Conner had enough love for both of them, and he **wanted** Lex.

"We're going to get him back," Clark repeated, believing it this time. He held out his hand to Conner and Conner shook his firmly, a gentleman's agreement.

Turning their backs on the sun that was following them over the ocean, Clark and Kon headed back home. Tomorrow would come soon enough, and it would be a different day. A day to try again, and one day, to succeed.

 

* * *

END

  


* * *

**Author's Note:**

>   
> _**Story References**  
>  \- Participle from a Predicate. 1776.  
> \- Ketchup on scrambled eggs. {looks askance at Ronda}  
> \- Bullock. That actually happened to me… my friend lived out on a farm, I was visiting, and, well, beef jerky. Um, yeah. Farm life.  
> \- "start of a beautiful friendship" – Casablanca. Considering the setting, I had to put it in. I didn't want to make too much about the setting, though, so I tried to keep it subtle._   
> 
> 
> Cross-posted to [my livejournal](http://community.livejournal.com/alatrific/20375.html). Thank you for the betas by Ronda and Sue. ^^


End file.
